The book and the tutorial make me think more about the meaning of a building. With a complex historical background, Hong Kong have many different kinds of architectures. However, the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 have great impact on the cultures and self-identities of Hong Kong people. The way of preservation have become an issue. Although some of them are kept in site, are they really properly preserved? I have the same idea with the author. The cultures and characteristics are actually disappearing. Take the Tsim Sha Tsui Clock Tower as an example, the architecture has become a decoration

Continue readingReading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Protecting old buildings is actually protecting the disappearing culture. Old buildings reflect the social environment, economic development and people’s living habits at that time. Due to the rapid economic development, reconstruction and demolition can be seen frequently in Hong Kong, and skyscrapers in Hong Kong can be seen everywhere. Hong Kong is no longer recognizable, just like other modern cities. The disappearance of culture, in other words, is the disappearance of Hong Kong. The former unique Hong Kong disappeared, and Hong Kong, which is no different from other cities, appeared. What Hong Kong has lost is not only architecture, not

Continue readingReading response: Ackbar Abbas

The conflict of preserving HK’s architecture is spotted as the inconsistency between the building’s original meanings and the building’s contemporary usage. For example, the Repulse Bay Hotel turns to be an apartment building, just preserving the historical site’s shape and place, but discarding the value of the original building. This way of preserving HK’s architecture is brutal and lack of carefulness, blurring Hong Kong’s history and culture in a sense. At the same time, architecture can be one lens to view the city’s culture, but it can not represent culture. Hence, films are the director’s language to describe the humanities

Continue readingReading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Hong Kong, a city which is neither western nor eastern, fount it hard to identify itself, especially in the year of 1997. Since Hong Kong is a changing city with receptivity to all kinds of architectural styles. What happened was that there are always some unfamiliar elements subliminally settled within the familiar scenes. Therefore, conservation of local Hong Kong culture is not to capture a fragment but a continuous history. In this case, the movie as a record of a specific moment might be helpful but not sufficient enough for the preservation of culture. Talking about preservation, it seems to

Continue readingReading Response: Ackbar Abbas

The ideas of the “Hong Kong: Culture and the politics of disappearance” and the discussion in the tutorial has provoked me to think more about the meaning of a building. There are always hidden messages or some historical meanings behind each architecture. However, usually the only thing we notice are the design and outlook of the buildings, while ignoring the story behind.  Meanwhile, I totally agree with the stance and reason suggested by the writer in the first two paragraphs in P.86, said that the demand of the market and commercial considerations has ruined the development of architecture. I utterly

Continue readingReading Response: Ackbar Abbas

The disappearance of architecture in Hong Kong due to different representations, preservations and more is discussed. Abbas believes that films in Hong Kong causes reappearance in architecture, from the rebuilding of Repulse Bay Hotel due to a film set to Hong Kong directors portraying Hong Kong stories with spatial characters from Hong Kong. To me, the identity and history of a place is usually determined by whoever is in power, like how the “placeless” buildings in Hong Kong are actually the most vocal but lacks identity. Perhaps art forms including film is a way for ordinary citizens to give our

Continue readingReading Response: Ackbar Abbas